This template is used on 25,000+ pages. To avoid large-scale disruption and unnecessary server load, any changes to it should first be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can then be added to this page in a single edit. Please consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

As with other interwiki links, if you misspell your link target, the link will still appear blue, not red. Check spelling carefully.

{{Commons category}} links to a "Category:" name in the Wikimedia Commons repository. If that category name is misspelled or missing, the link will still appear "blue" even though the link will fail. Check the existence of the category on commons as well as the spelling of names carefully.

Usage

Floats link-box to the left side, as option to align box to left-margin

The two parameters catnam and shownam (1 & 2) are optional, and are intended for cases where the Commons category name is different from the Wikipedia page name. The first parameter is the name of the corresponding category on the Wikimedia Commons, without the "Category:" prefix. If this first parameter is used, then the template will display the Commons category name, which may be confusing to readers. This text can be overridden by the second parameter, where the Wikipedia page name would typically be used.

A bot account, AvicBot (talk·contribs), currently runs a task which automatically fills in the first parameter where it is blank, thus providing some protection against category links breaking when pages are moved. It should therefore be safe to omit this when manually editing pages if the page title matches the Commons category title.